


all these people think love's for show (but i would die for you in secret)

by NaomiGnome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Scars, Spies & Secret Agents, a butchery of canon events pressed into a modern spy au sausage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiGnome/pseuds/NaomiGnome
Summary: “Jaime Lannister, you’re coming with me.”Green eyes assess her quickly, flickering from the top of her head to her toes in a skilled check of the situation at hand.He replies with a sylphlike smirk, “Not without a little foreplay, I’m not.”Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth go from enemies to partners, agents of an organization with no name and a single purpose. Find the Stark girls.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 29
Kudos: 144
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020





	all these people think love's for show (but i would die for you in secret)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dame_Lazarus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dame_Lazarus/gifts).



> Thank you so much for the wonderful prompts. Their prompts to me were: 
> 
> 1\. Meeting after a long separation
> 
> 2\. Having to work together 
> 
> 3\. A secret is revealed
> 
> The title is from Taylor Swift's _peace_

**I.**

The first time they meet, they’re not even on the same side.

 _”We’re operating on a level above the laws and organizations and this blasted war. I need Jaime Lannister alive, but he’s no good to anyone rotting away in the maximum security cell they’re holding him in.”_ Cat says into her ear.

“Affirmative,” Brienne says, and the comm shorts out. She knew the second she crossed into Direwolf territory, the signal would be lost. Their equipment is rudimentary at best, and she knows that having Cat as a handler would be helpful, but this was important, and she would manage. 

Breaking in is easy, Cat had given her a key. In her head, Brienne goes over the details of her assignment. 

Jaime Lannister, former Kingsguard, killed King Aerys and single handedly started what the population was beginning to call the Second War of the Five Kings, as the nation couldn’t put together who they actually wanted on the damn throne. Youngest agent in an age, comparable to history’s favorite Goldenhand. The people had even begun to call him The Kingslayer. She’d seen videos of him disarming assassins; he was as deadly as he was beautiful. And now--

The cell door swings open without flourish, revealing Jaime Lannister in his imprisoned glory. His hair is golden and the curls fall around his face like a mane. He’s sitting in a way that makes Brienne want to smother him. 

“Jaime Lannister, you’re coming with me.”

Green eyes assess her quickly, flickering from the top of her head to her toes in a skilled check of the situation at hand.

He replies with a sylphlike smirk, “Not without a little foreplay, I’m not.”

_________________________________________________

Leaving the facility is a little more difficult than getting in. The Kingslayer offers no help, and dragging him with his hands bound was a pain she had not considered. They make it out of the immediate perimeter but are intercepted by three Direwolf guards.

She takes them down and shoots them with an ease that belies the fact that these are her first kills. In the aftermath, the weight of her actions overwhelms her for a second, and Lannister doesn’t miss a beat, and manages to unbind himself from his restraints.

They grapple on a godsforsaken bridge for control. It’s a tangle of arms and legs. He lunges. She lunges. She meets him blow for blow. Again and again and again. She can feel his hands on her, just as vividly as she feels him underneath against the skin of her knuckles and palms. 

When he backs away sharply, Brienne is aghast to discover he’s disarmed her. She rapidly pulls out her second gun. And they are at a standstill, facing each other and breathing hard. 

He’s good, she’ll give him that, but anyone who can kill a king has to be good. Jaime looks impressed with her, too, if the charged look he gave her when she took out those Direwolf agents was any indication. And then ultimately the impressed expression morphs into surprise when, despite the gun, she charges him. 

He lets off a single bullet and it grazes the inside of her thigh, enough to make her wince and draw blood, but not enough to stop her from tackling him to the ground and wrestling him into submission. She’s got both of his wrists pinned above his head and her knee is drawn up and pressed against his torso. Jaime’s chest is heaving under her knee. Her chest is heaving in tandem. From above him, Brienne can see the green of his eyes darken, and even in submission, he’s annoyingly beautiful. Her blood is rushing, and it’s not all adrenaline. 

_________________________________________________

“Cat, no.” 

Catelyn Stark makes it clear that it wasn't something Brienne could debate on. Jaime Lannister has defected and agreed to help them, and Jaime Lannister needs a partner, and since Brienne is the most trusted agent at Catelyn’s disposal (currently the only agent at Catelyn’s disposal), Jaime Lannister’s partner was to be Brienne Tarth. 

“Cat, we can’t put him in the field, I literally had to bring him up here _tied up_. How could we trust him in the field?!” 

“You know, I’m right here.” 

She’s all too aware that he’s right there. He’s lounging in Cat’s office chair, draped over the piece of furniture like half a god. His long hair is now tied neatly into a ponytail and his legs are spread out invitingly. He’s regarding her with a leonine smirk that made her want to dunk his head into a tank of water. 

She ignores him and offers one final plea to Cat, “ _Please_ ,” 

But there’s no room for arguments and Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth go from enemies to partners, agents of an organization with no name and a single purpose. Find the Stark girls.

_________________________________________________

“I look forward to our partnership, Blue.”

Brienne’s eyes narrowed at him, “My name is not ‘Blue’.” 

“Oh, then do tell it to me.”

“Were you not listening in your first debriefing at all?”

“Brienne Tarth, former Rainbow Guard agent. You must be impressive. Renly would hardly let anyone without a cock he could suck on within six feet of him--”

She has her entire forearm pressed against his neck in a second, trapping him against the wall. He grapples back easily, pushing away her offending arm, but she’s quicker and she holds down both his wrists in one hand and yanks his face upward by the base of his ponytail. All the breath leaves his body and he stiffens against her advance. 

“You will _not_ provoke me to anger, Kingslayer,” Brienne hisses inches from his face. 

Jaime sneered, “I already have, how do you think this is going to play out when you look like you want to kill me every time I speak?” It’s not a euphemism, and they both know it. “A truce?”

She drops her grip from his hair and Jaime takes a breath and sways against the wall he was pressed against, not breaking eye contact. The green of his eyes is dark and mossy, and it reminds her briefly of the rocks of Tarth’s coves. 

Brienne speaks plainly, “I don’t need your truce. Do your job and don’t betray me.” 

**II.**

Their first mission goes about as bad as the gods could have guessed. They’re sent out by Cat to retrieve possible information on Arya’s whereabouts from a shady character named Locke. But Locke isn’t interested in giving information, only taking. 

Brienne’s screams and her protests ring in his ears, before Jaime calls out.

“Sapphires!” 

“What did you say?”

“That’s Brienne of Tarth. You hear me? _Of_ Tarth. She doesn’t have a regular name like you or I. She’s ‘of’. She’s from a _royal_ family. You really think that defiling her is going to win you any favors? ” 

Jaime is charming and charismatic and convincing. Spins a load of bullshit on how her family castle sits on a mine of sapphires. 

They return her to the tree she’s tied to without further harassment. Brienne stares at him, like he’s a brand new person. Like she didn’t beat him into the ground not even a week ago. That back then they weren’t even on the same side.

“And what about you? You prat, are you from a royal line?” Locke croons and cackles.

Jaime is not as charming and charismatic as he believes. 

****

They underestimate her, people always do. _He did._ She makes a point to shoot all of them dead without fanfare. All but the man who takes Jaime’s hand. She makes a point to take the bastard’s machete and take his arm. The look that she sends Jaime is electric, and Jaime can only gape openly while he’s bleeding out from his arm. The bastard is screaming, and she’s still holding Jaime’s gaze when she puts a bullet in the bastard’s head. 

Locke escapes, the coward. And Brienne is more concerned with more pressing matters. The blood loss makes itself apparent, and Brienne cradles Jaime’s deadweight body as it falls forward to the ground. 

_________________________________________________

The days blur in and out. He remembers an entrance to a safehouse. Brienne. _She’s so strong._ She could be dragging him, but she’s not. She’s carrying him, in her arms that are gentle and pulse with purpose. 

When he wakes again he’s on a bed, and she’s holding his arm closely, trying to mop up blood. And infection. The sensation of her fingers carefully mending him sends cracks of light through the fog of pain. Someone is screaming. He doesn’t recognize the man screaming. But he recognizes Brienne’s voice. 

It’s clear and sorrowful and pleading in its tone, “Jaime,”

This is the first time she says his name like that, and through the excruciating mind fog, he hears it like a beacon, calling him home. 

_________________________________________________  
Jaime is despondent when he regains consciousness. He refuses touch. He refuses care. He is _sulking_. 

“You are _sulking_!” 

Jaime just sneers at her. 

“You are alive, Kingslayer.” She calls him that now, because he’s actively conscious. He hates it. In his dreams, he hears her say his name. 

“This is hardly living. You should’ve put a bullet in my head with the rest of them, Blue.” 

“What are you doing?” She asks him sternly. 

He feels a spark of shame, but plows on, “I’m dying. Can’t you see?”

“A golden lion?” She says to him plainly, “More cowardly than golden.” 

Jaime gapes at her, but she charges on in that way of hers. She’s an ocean with a single purpose. “You’re not dead. So live. Find a reason, there are plenty. Including the promise you made to Cat.” 

Jaime scoffs again, but he can feel a tinder spark in his belly at her declaration. “You think yourself a knight, Blue? Think you’re a fairytale hero?”

“I would rather be a fairytale hero than villain.” She doesn’t say it, but it’s another stab at his honor. The word ‘Kingslayer’ sits in the open air as she walks away from him.

****  
He opens the door to the confined bathroom of the safehouse, and Brienne almost shoots him where he stands. Her face recognizes him in an instant and she hastily dunks her body back in the enormous metal tub that takes up most of the small space. A little water sloshes over the side, and the steam of it did little to hide the nimbus of her body. 

He drops his towel, and she demands incredulously, “What in the _seven hells_ do you think you’re doing?” He’s clambering into the tub with her against stuttered protests. 

“You told me to live.” He says shortly, “I am living.” 

“Why are you in my bath?!”

“I am bathing.”  


He relishes in the flush of anger that spreads beyond her neck, but she doesn’t yell anymore. He feels delirious. The bathtub is large but not so large that some of their limbs aren’t touching under the water, she is keeping her arms close and scrubbing small furious circles into her skin. The rawness it leaves is hypnotizing. 

He doesn’t know what possesses him but he turns his back to her and reclines beseechingly, “Blue, wash my hair. I can't get my bandage wet, and I’m no good with one arm.” 

For a second, as he’s glancing back at her over his shoulder, he thinks he catches an expression of humor passing over her face. Like she’ll make a jape about his lack of dexterity in a bedroom context. He almost prays for it, it would be better than the backlash he predicts he is sure to receive. But there’s something in the bathwater, because she doesn't object. She simply sighs, and bends over towards him, running suds of soap through his mangled hair. Jaime bites back an involuntary moan at her fingers raking through his scalp. 

“Thank you, for saving me,” he murmurs, he thinks the sentimentality of it will drive away his sudden flare of lust. Although the idea of either makes him want to run. “You could have left me among those bodies, and I would have bled out and no one would have been the wiser.”

Brienne hums in thought, and the sound reverberates in his chest. “You’re my partner. Whether you like it or not, I’m honor-bound to protect you.”

“As I am, you.” 

Brienne has the audacity to make an unbelieving noise. “A truce, Blue? You can’t honestly believe I would betray you after all this time?”

“You need trust for a truce.” She drags her fingers over his hair once more.

“I trust you.” 

“How can I trust you?”

She pauses in her rinsing. He’s lightheaded from the steam and the blood loss and the weight of events, and he finds himself drifting. Her pause wakes him from his reverie like a cold start, but his body won’t move. 

When he starts, he knows he won’t stop. They’re words that have never left his mouth, never found a door past his memories and dreams. 

“Did you know him? The King? He was mad. He was going to burn King’s Landing down to the ground, caches of wildfire ran throughout the sewers. When the revolution happened, it was his juggernaut.” Jaime’s eyes grew green and empty. “I’d watched him watch his enemies burn where they stood, right in the throne room. Screaming mixed in with him muttering under his breath the whole time. All the time. ‘Burn them all. Burn them all. Burn them all.’ When he began to feel threatened, when he considered burning the entire capital I knew I couldn’t stand by any more--” he chokes off with a shudder that sends ripples through the water. He feels faint and realizes that somehow, he’s leaning against Brienne for support. 

“Jaime,” she says his name again in that way that unmoors him completely. She cups water with the other hand and pours it over him in an attempt to rinse the soap from his hair. 

The droplets run over him, and he closes his eyes. When they open again, she’s staring right at him with something that isn’t pity or hate. The blue is a shade of exaltation. The blue is a shade of damnation. Jaime feels wrung out and warm. 

A few more inches and he could kiss her.

Brienne stands up abruptly, shattering the moment in a way that only all six feet and three inches of her can. He’s so unhinged by her sudden movement it takes him a second to find his balance and she is already halfway out the bathroom door, wrapping a meager towel over her broad frame.

She stops at the entryway and glances at him. “Thank you, too, you could’ve let them--” She doesn’t say the words. “But you didn’t. I’m grateful. For everything you’ve done.” 

She doesn’t say the words, but the acknowledgement of his deed weighs in every syllable of her thanks to him. It warms him more than the steaming bath; this is the lightest he’s ever felt since he became an agent, and not only because he’s now short the whole half a pound of what used to be his hand. 

He calls out to her, “Hey Blue! It can’t get any worse than this, right?”

**III.**

It gets worse. 

They can’t get into contact with Cat. The last intel anyone of Jaime’s contacts has of her is an interaction with Roose Bolton. He pulls some strings with his family and manages to snag invitations to Bolton’s private dinner party and the highest quality prosthetic money can buy. 

The mission is this: Infiltrate Roose Bolton's dinner party as a married couple interested in dipping a toe in one of Bolton’s several businesses. He had his hand in all sorts of things, from trafficking (people and animals) to information. 

Security is high. Brienne is instructed by the invitation to wear a monstrous pink dress (it was “party uniform”). It’s tight and short with a hem that just reaches her knees and a neckline that also reaches for her knees (the deep vee manages to stop at a point above her navel), and she feels like an uncooked sausage that had just been put in casing. 

“How are you going to conceal any weapons, _wife_?” Jaime’s tone is as heavy as touch. 

She throws him a glare, but he’s right, the dress is too short to conceal any weapons, and too tight to not make it obvious. They should’ve known then that gift was a safety precaution on Bolton’s part, and that they were already made.

_________________________________________________

They throw her in a bear pit. _A bear pit_. 

Jaime swears as he sees her. He didn’t know where they were taking her, only that Bolton had told him that he was free to go. She had simply nodded from her restraints to go. As if he could just leave her there.

A boy named Podrick sneaks him back at his insistence. But he doesn’t need much convincing. And as Podrick leads him back to Bolton’s “main event”, Jaime feels his stomach clench. He hears the roar before he sees the beast and he sees the beast before he sees Brienne, fighting off a bear _with a wooden sword_.

He doesn’t think. He jumps. He hears Podrick’s yell, and the gasp of onlookers and jeering bystanders. 

“Get behind me!”

“I’m the one with the sword!”

“Lovely, it can pick its teeth with it afterwards!”

A gunshot rings out, and takes out the bear. Everything is happening so fast, that when they finally get away with the benevolence of his father’s influence (the first time he had ever been truly thankful for it) he barely registers that they’ve kept Podrick with them. 

He only has eyes for Brienne, who’s staring at him with something he doesn’t want to name. 

_A fucking bear pit._

_________________________________________________  
This time it’s him that pulls her into the infirmary of the safehouse. Podrick seems harmless and eager to help, but Jaime is so shaken he needs to do this alone. He pointedly avoids Brienne’s eyes as he mops off the blood of her collarbone to reveal three gashes. 

After the bath, he’s not unphased by the bareness of her shoulders, but it’s not casual either. He’s delicate and shaky but he offers a third hand as they gingerly wrap her wounds in bandages. The brushes send static up his arms, and when it’s done they meet eyes.

“Jaime, why did you come back for me?”

Jaime breathes, thinks of every insult he can hurl. How he meant to get the bear, how he needed the keys to the safehouse, insult after insult, but none roll off his tongue. 

Instead he whispers, “You’re my partner. Whether you like it or not, I’m honor-bound to protect you.”

_________________________________________________

They’ve adopted Podrick. He helps around the safehouse while they try to figure out their next move. He favors Brienne, and Brienne dotes on him, much to Jaime’s amusement and disgruntlement. Cat is still missing, the rumors that she’s dead along with Robb Stark reach them, but Brienne is the lead here. She insists on the fulfillment of their mission. 

_________________________________________________

Brienne wakes him up very rudely one morning, and he groans in discomfort. She’s not amused though, judging by her stance at the door of his room and it entices him against his will. She’s standing widely with her hands on her hips, and her weapons aren’t concealed for once, which surprises him. 

Instead, she’s wearing a black, leather shoulder holster that accentuates the breadth of her shoulders and the lines of her collar bone. Underneath is a very simple, white tank top, but it only brings his attention to the rippling muscle of her arms and the freckles that make their home on the length of her biceps. 

_No, no weapons concealed._ Jaime’s head traitorously confirms, _Welcome to the gun show._

She looks entirely nonplussed at his rude awakening, and instead tilts her head at him raises a pale eyebrow expectantly. The head tilt gives him ample view of the stretch of her neck where there are no freckles, but the unblemished swath of skin makes Jaime want to mark it with his teeth and lips and tongue.

“Get up!” Her melodious and damning voice orders. “It’s time for training.” 

Jaime scoffs, no amount of lustful admiration is going to cloud his brain from the situation at hand. Which is to say, he has only one. 

“I think you’re forgetting something,” He says, waving his stump around.

“I think you’re forgetting that you have another hand.” She responds coolly. 

She throws a holster with a gun at his chest, and walks out of the room. If his eyes linger on the firmness of her ass as she walks away, that’s to no one’s knowledge but his.

_________________________________________________

Brienne retrains him alongside Podrick. 

It’s a painful process, and she doesn’t hold back. Her instruction is good, and she’s firm but patient. Jaime learns to fight again, and more surprisingly to shoot. He even learns how to reload his pistol with one hand. She often berates him with a fond exasperation, when he loses focuses. He’ll never tell her it’s because of the brush of her long, lithe and steady fingers guiding him into correct gun-holding positions.

At night he begins to dream of her hands guiding him to other places, too. 

**IV.**

Jaime is gathering resources from his contacts while Podrick and Brienne have gone on a simple reconnaissance mission. They come back with one more person, both he and Podrick are supporting the full weight of Brienne, who is bleeding profusely from her face.

“We were ambushed!” Podrick gasps. “A group came for us when we approached your old headquarters.”

There’s a chunk of her face missing and Jaime feels like he can’t breathe. 

Information swims in his mind in the coming days. This is Hyle Hunt, an old colleague of Brienne. He would help them on their impossible quest. Jaime couldn’t find it in himself to really care. Not as he stands vigil over Brienne’s feverish body, wiping away the sweat and tears as she has nightmares of gods knows what. 

“Jaime!” She gasps in her sleep. Over and over. His name.

It’s all he can do to not hold her body against his, and pray for when she opens her blue eyes again. 

_________________________________________________

When she awakens, she’s shaking and shivering and in shock. It scares him, feeling the relief rush through his body like a tide. When had she become so precious to him?

“Jaime,” she murmurs. 

“Blue,” he whispers hoarsely, “Don’t betray me like this. Don’t tell me to live and then try to follow the Stranger to the dark.”

**V.**

She betrays him.

It’s a recovery mission gone very, very wrong, and she is with Pod and Hyle. They’re attempting to get back to the old headquarters (when it was just Brienne and Cat) in order to retrieve some of Cat’s old files to get a hint of where they could either find any of the Stark women. Jaime’s in her ear, their one comm spread between the four of them and it’s meant to be simple. 

They’re ambushed by a group that follows a woman named Stoneheart. 

“Jaime--” she calls out, before she’s struck unconscious. 

_________________________________________________

“Where is Jaime Lannister?”

“I don’t know who that is.” He hears the sound of a fist cracking across a face.

_”The Kingslayer.”_

Brienne wheezes, “A myth. A legend.” 

Jaime would have been delighted to know how his snark has rubbed on her, if it weren’t for him having to hear it on the other side of a staticky comm. Each blow to her body feels like a crack in Jaime’s ribs. 

“Enough games,” Stoneheart rasps, “I tire of your insolence.”

Jaime’s stomach drops and the sound of a sudden gasping, choking noise he knows is Brienne. 

_No. No. No. No._

The gasping stops. 

The rasp speaks again, “Will you die for him?”

It’s choked, but clear, and it rings hollow in Jaime’s ears. The sound of it bounces in his ribs. It shatters him. 

“With honor.”

Someone hits her again, and Jaime can hear nothing but static.

_________________________________________________

 _He should have never let her go._ He curses himself. He’s called in every contact he knows to find out who Stoneheart was. Their location, their purpose, where they could have possibly taken Brienne (and Podrick and Hyle). _Brienne. Brienne. Brienne._

He shoves guns he can barely pull the trigger on, on top of several pistols he’s been feeling more confident with. Bandages, bombs, smoke pellets, antiseptic, his mind is racing with every scenario that will give him the advantage in his reckless crusade. 

The security monitors beep, announcing the presence of someone at the door. The camera shows someone tall, stooped over, blonde. He knew the shape of her as well as he knew the beating of his heart. Jaime stumbles to the door and his fingers fumble to punch in the key.

And then she is standing in front of him. 

The downpour is making her torn clothes stick to her beaten body. Rivulets of water mix with the blood of cuts he can't see. But she's there, broken and bruised, with a line of purple, blue and yellow carved into her neck. 

It unforgivably brings out the blue in her eyes. 

“Jaime,” she croaks. He can barely hear her over the rain, but Jaime doesn’t care. _She speaks. She’s here. She is saying my name._ She starts again, her eyes welling, “Jaime, what you heard on the comms, I don’t know how much you heard, I would never--”

He hears nothing else and his brain only has one aim. In an instant he is inches from her. He grabs the straps of her shoulder holster and pulls her against him, and slants his lips over hers, frantic and burning and needy. She _must_ be weary, because instead of fighting or pushing or protesting, she melts against him with the vibration of a moan and pulls him closer. He adjusts his arms so that they’re wound around her waist, clutching her to him. 

Jaime cannot stop. He will not. He will keep kissing Brienne and holding her and feeling the thrum of her life pulsing against him if it’s the last thing he’ll do. He doesn’t care if the rain is soaking through his clothes. He doesn’t feel the cold sinking into his bones. He can’t register the fact that she is here alone, with no Podrick or Hyle in sight. None of that matters. 

Everything that matters is here in his arms. 

_________________________________________________ 

When they pull away, Jaime drags her inside their safehouse. He fills the spaces between her fingers with his own, as he pulls her into their little infirmary. Jaime presses his lips to hers again. 

“Jaime--”

“Tomorrow, Brienne.” Her name leaves his mouth in a shudder. “I know--I know we have a mission. I know we have to get Pod, and Hunt. _I know._ ” He sits her down on the infirmary bed, and pushes the wet hair stuck to her glorious face back from her eyes. “You’re no good to them injured. You’re no good to them dead. Let me--” He brings a damp cloth soaked with rubbing alcohol to a cut on her brow. “Get patched up. Get rest. Sleep and _heal_.” He laughs, a dry humorless choke of sound like he’s still trying to get a grip. 

_She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive._

“You are relentless in your pursuit of justice, Blue. You are a knight come to life.” Jaime is hoarse with relief and he could drown in the expression Brienne is shooting him. The blues of her eyes are the eye of the storm sitting square in his chest. 

“You are light.”  


Slowly and deliberately, he patches up the little cuts and bruises. Finally, he traces the bruise seared into the base of her neck lightly with his fingers; she lets him put his lips to it. She shivers at the contact, and Jaime is suddenly ravenous for her skin, for her scars, for her. She interprets his wrecked gaze in an instant, in the way only she can. Gently pulls his hands from her collar, and pulls the damp shirt off. Jaime ghosts his fingers and stump along her ribs, and smiles at her breathy giggle. As soon as the shirt is over her head, he brings his lips to her again, presses his forehead to hers, breathes, “Can we?” 

“Yes,” the word from her mouth sits in his ribs and unfurls like the birth of a star. The pitch of it is as needy as his, and he knows she’s matching his wavelength. She needs him as much as he needs her. She loves him. He loves her.

Neither of them have ever been persons for words, but they don’t need many. 

He kisses her again. Moves down and presses his lips again to the purple of her neck. Peppers kisses along one of the three jagged lines from that damned bear. Goes back up to nuzzle against the scar along her cheek. Kisses her lips again. 

Brienne gazes at him warmly, and her gentle hands bring his stump to her cheek. She presses her too-big, cut-up, _perfect_ lips to the ugliest, most honorable part of him. Suddenly everything is moving too slow, and Jaime wants all of her. He wants to know every freckle. Every scar. Every inch of skin that makes up Brienne. 

Jaime makes his observations with vigor to Brienne’s body. Clothes are discarded without care. He absorbs every breathy moan and whisper and kisses his way all the way down her body, teasingly avoiding the area she wants him most (it is killing him too) and on his way back up her legs, he notices a faint blemish on the inside of her thigh that’s far too large to be a system of freckles. It’s a scar. 

“Where did you get this one?” He breaths, just loud enough for Brienne to look up and see what he’s asking about. 

Her eyes are glazed in pleasure, and it takes her a few blinks, but a moment later she falls back onto the infirmary pillow and sighs dreamily, “That one is yours. From when you shot me on the bridge. Our first time. We fought.”

 _”Yours.” Mine._

Jaime runs his tongue over the little petal of discolored skin. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs into the soft flesh of her thigh. The apology is a kiss on her skin, and he makes his way up towards her apex and apologizes in full.

_________________________________________________

Tomorrow, they’ll come up with a rescue plan. They’ll be prepared and ready. They’ll rescue Podrick and Hyle from Stoneheart’s men. They’ll find Sansa and Arya. Tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to do a little of everything, and I hope it worked to your liking! I really enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> The exchange definitely took me out of my writing comfort-zone, which was both a blessing a curse. Many , _many_ thanks to the organizers of the exchange, you have my eternal admiration and respect. And to my beta, I owe food and drinks. We did it! <3


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